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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story with a strong sense of place. How is the setting of your world the same as, but different to, our own?

Posted in Mystery on Mar 22, 2024

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 49 stories

“Ke Kulanakauhale ma ke Kai, or The City by The Sea” by Thomas Iannucci

🏆 Winner of Contest #243

Ke Kulanakauhale ma ke Kaior,The City by the Seaby thomas iannucci Author’s Note: In this story I use Hawaiian words, as the story is set in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii. However, I do not italicize them, as I am from Hawaii, and so these words are not foreign to me. Growing up there were many English words unfamiliar to us in school, and they were never italicized; I would like this same standard to be applied to Hawaiian, which is, for better or for worse, also now a language in the United States. Mahalo for your kokua. “The city by the sea,...

126 comments 126
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“Living On Easy Street” by Mary Bendickson

Submitted to Contest #243

Living on Easy Street Living on Easy Street refers to a life free of financial worries, full of comforts and all the luxuries of life. In general a life of ease. Almost anyone would admit they dream of living on Easy Street. Imagine the wealth providing all the luxurious accommodations to make life perfect. Could be someone worked hard all of their career battling up the ladder until reaching the top to feel like they made it to Easy Street. Or perhaps someone was born into a limitless inheritance so that is all they were accustomed to their...

48 comments 48
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“The Hundred - Nine War” by Steffen Lettau

Submitted to Contest #243

This is an excerpt taken from my story-in-development, "Resolution".Upon the world of Nuoath, in the year of the King of the All and Ever Six-Thousand-Thirty-Four, the tense strings between the Bestials and the Children of War were all except broken, but the Bestials of the forests of Anthrine were determined to take the militant country of Martoln even by tooth and claw. Though many a fort had been set between the two, one became pivotal and poignant.Tesdannon, the Crimson Base. An ironic name of potential infamy.The Children of War were re...

11 comments 11
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“The Rogue Wave of the Mystical Coast” by Kristi Gott

Submitted to Contest #243

The surge of icy water swept over her feet. Then rising above her knees, it pulled Elsie into the tumbling ocean surf, along with her puppy and her friend.They surfaced in a cave of sloshing water.Earlier, Elsie was walking on the beach she loved near the lighthouse. It was a mystical and magical place. The next moment the ocean flooded the sand and surrounded her with a rogue wave surge.Elsie and her friend Bret saw the dark, furry head of her puppy, Teddybear, emerge.A swell of water lifted them, then dropped, and they stood on a...

31 comments 31
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“Bird Shelf” by Niamh O'Dea

Submitted to Contest #243

Magda rubbed her huge belly as she looked out the round window of her apartment. Well, fuck it, she muttered when she saw the unscathed birdseed on the clear shelf. She looked across at Technon House, a veritable aviary of birdlife flitted around the thousands of apartment windows. Same seed, same seed shelves as her’s. Try not to take that one personally.She jabbed at the Murphy button beside her bed petulantly and as her bedroom folded up, crumbs on the kitchen floor were revealed. Dinner muffin from the night before. She gathered some up ...

3 comments 3
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“Barbequeue” by J. I. MumfoRD

Submitted to Contest #243

The row of heads bobbed at a steady pace. Surely not much further. We’ve walked for a while now, and we’re tired from tests and injections.Impossible to say how long we’ve been walking. The corridors pulsed and contracted around us, breathing in time with our shuffling steps. The metal walls glistened with a sickly sweat that beaded and congealed into runnels, adding another layer to the already suffocating miasma. It’s always the same—walk forward, make a sharp left turn, continue forward for another hundred thirty-two paces, make a sharp r...

20 comments 20
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“A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing” by Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #243

Just as the subway doors begin to close, I rush inside seconds before the train leaves Capitol Heights station. Sitting on a cold, hard aluminum seat, I feel the weight of a dozen pair of eyes examining me. I’m scared and trembling like a leaf. I still don’t belong, and I need to figure out why.Devious, that’s what my mother calls me. My biggest challenge at the moment is the daily battle to outmaneuver my government watchers. I realize this sounds crazy, but please, hear me out. I woke up as the first person ever to be taken out of a c...

10 comments 10
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“MIC DROP!-ELEMENTAL UPRISE” by E.L. Lallak

Submitted to Contest #243

Date: The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 2032Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow Americans, I stand before you in this momentous address with a vision for our nation. We are at a time of dire despair, a low point that calls for bold solutions. I present a vision that seeks to heal the wounds of the past and forge a united future.To achieve this, I propose a transformative restructuring of our country, dividing it into four distinct regions, each representing a fundamental element: fire, air, water, and earth.Our esteemed ...

11 comments 11
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“Dr. Mollusk's Influence” by Kathryn Kahn

Submitted to Contest #243

It was New Year’s Eve 2029, and Rhonda Rafferty, aka Dr. Mollusk, was partying hard. As a marine biologist turned social media influencer, she’d been invited to several big New Year’s Eve parties in Los Angeles, and she’d picked three, the ones where the organizers had assured her there would be plenty of bivalves on the buffet. She had a wonderful time taking selfies and posting stories with clams, mussels, and even cockles, which the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association had been pushing her to spotlight since her voice in the oyster...

16 comments 16
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“Catalyst” by Nicole Ashcraft

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #243

The truck jolted over another crater-like pothole as the pungent odor of rotting fish filtered into the cab, mingling with the salty air scratching at the back of my throat. I grabbed my grimy steel travel mug from the busted cup holder and took a swig, gripping it tightly to protect the precious brew that had been cold for hours. As much trouble as the old diesel gave me, she could navigate anything but a sinkhole. Over the years she evolved into a fortress of jagged rusty metal, deterring thieves and most everyone else, too. I named her Ma...

12 comments 12
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“Jack-o-Junking ” by Diana Jo Filip

Submitted to Contest #243

“I always had an unusual relationship with drawers. Especially the top ones, called offensively (and even defensively), junk-drawers. They are so far from being junky as is Japan from a second Pearl Harbor. But, I’ll leave the knick-knacks drawer peroration for another time. Good afternoon!”He opened his notebook, ready to write the date and the name of the patient, when her out-of-the-blue opening stopped him in the middle of the word “August”.“You know, I find drawers very loud, jam-packed, ideologically conflicting and overloaded with baf...

4 comments 4
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“A Pandemic Memoir” by Alexandra Noir

Submitted to Contest #243

Day 600 "People have forgotten how to be human... They are losing themselves one by one and are bored by the abundance of life passing through their hands. Steps feel lost on the stairs of buildings that rise higher each day as if they aspire to rebuild the Tower of Babel. Researchers nowadays see themselves as minor gods and race towards vanity, losing sight of the fact that every particle within them defies immortality, being mere mortals after all. Our perfect ambitions have made us forget to look back at the earth that holds our roots. W...

8 comments 8
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“The Beast” by Michael Jefferson

Submitted to Contest #243

When I wake up, I’m no longer a teacher. I’m a refugee half a galaxy away from my home on Erde II.  The refugee next to me, a bearded, olive-skinned man, says, “Welcome back, sleeping beauty.” I look around the sparse shack. There are dozens of bunks stacked on top of one another with men in them, conversing, sleeping, or crying. They all wear the same worn, dusty, striped clothes, and look as if they haven’t bathed or eaten in weeks. “Where is Ilsa, my wife?” I ask. “The pretty one? She might still be alive. You’re Hebron, aren’t you? ...

8 comments 8
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“We the People” by Elisabeth Fowler

Submitted to Contest #243

Nicole picked up a cherimoya and pretended to examine it while sneaking glances at the wizen shopkeeper. His stares were bold, so she turned a cold shoulder to him—a weak attempt at hiding from his judgment. She perused plums and pomegranates as if it were her birthright to buy his wares. The hole-in-the-wall souk was never busy like the rest of the market. The emptiness of it was usually inviting, but anxiety was starting to rouse Nicole as she continued her hunt for less bruised produce under the keeper’s watchful eye. For the first time, ...

3 comments 3
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“The Perfect Moment” by Scott Taylor

Submitted to Contest #243

In the year 2027, the fabric of time frayed. It began gently, like a whisper in the wind, but soon, the world felt its tremors. The study of Wandering Black Holes was primarily focused on by celestial physicists and science fiction writers. The cessation of communication from probes sent to the solar system’s outer regions prompted swift action from NASA and the military complex. Using their state-of-the-art space-based telescope, Ginger Johnson, a NASA expert in celestial mechanics, studied a recent phenomenon that appeared in the night s...

8 comments 8
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Contest #243

Enter our weekly contest!

This week's theme: Re-Imagining Our World Through Speculative Fiction with Alice McIlroy

$250

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283

Contest entries

113

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 29, 2024 EST

Won by Thomas Iannucci 🏆

Title: Ke Kulanakauhale ma ke Kai, or The City by The Sea

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